Understanding Lone-Actor Violence Through Linguistic Analysis

Isabelle van der Vegt, Bennett Kleinberg, Paul Gill

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter seeks to understand lone-actor terrorists through their use of language. Studies examining terrorist and extremist online postings, pre-attack threats, and manifestos are described. The authors specifically focus on efforts in which linguistic analysis is performed automatically, for example, to measure potential warning signs of violence in text. Following this overview, the authors identify shortcomings to the current approach and provide suggestions on how to further improve our understanding of lone-actor terrorism through language. The increased importance of detecting and countering the narratives of potentially violent individuals online further necessitates focusing on automated approaches to linguistic analysis. They conclude that openness and collaboration between security professionals and researchers is needed to effectively detect and counter terrorist and extremist narratives.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLone-Actor Terrorism: An Integrated Framework
EditorsJacob C. Holzer, Andrea J. Dew, Patricia R. Recupero, Paul Gill
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter7
Pages96–C7.P96
ISBN (Electronic)9780190929824
ISBN (Print)9780190929794
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Keywords

  • linguistic analysis
  • lone-actor terrorism
  • online extremism
  • threat assessment
  • computational linguistics

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